NHS England funding of the Second Sight Argus II retinal prosthesis system has been justified in a peer reviewed paper published in the Royal College of Ophthalmologist’s Eye Journal as providing sufficient cost savings and patient benefits.
The article, titled Electronic Retinal Implants and Artificial Vision: Journey and Present, said that while there were five main retinal devices approved or in pre-commercial development stages, the Argus II was one of two devices most likely to succeed in being the first to be used clinically.
The review concluded: ‘The economic argument is clear. Provided device-life is long enough, its cost should be acceptable for the obtained improvement in quality of life.’
The prosthesis captures images on a spectacle-mounted miniature video camera, converts the images to electrical pulses, and then transmits those pulses wirelessly to electrodes implanted on the retinal surface, bypassing defunct retinal cells and stimulating the viable retinal cells in patients with severe to profound retinitis pigmentosa (RP).
NHS England is about to undertake the first publicly funded evaluation trial of the Argus II device in 10 severely blind patients with retinitis pigmentosa, starting later in 2017.
The agreement is to fund the treatment through the Commissioning Through Evaluation scheme, in which NHS England will conduct a 12-month clinical trial to evaluate the real-life benefits to patients of using the device. From this evidence, NHS England will decide whether to routinely fund the treatment in eligible patients.